This invention relates to disposable diapers of the type having adhesive closure tabs for fastening purposes, and in particular concerns a separate element which may be added to adhesive closure tabs in order to provide a system that may be opened after fastening, and then re-closed.
One of the problems that has been encountered in the use of adhesive closure tabs on disposable diapers is the tearing which readily occurs when attempts are made to re-position the tapes during fastening, or if the diaper needs to be opened to check for soiling. Especially in situations arising during toilet training of toddlers is this problem bothersome and expensive. For instance, each time the diaper has to be removed for training purposes the tapes must be peeled from the thin plastic outside film. Too often this peeling tears the film with the consequence that a possibly unsoiled diaper cannot be used again, or some inconvenient patch-up attempts are made to salvage the diaper. Loss of this unsoiled diaper, and others like it, adds up to an economic and environmental burden.
While there have been recent attempts to overcome this problem, the previous efforts were concerned with supplying an adhesive closure system which the manufacturer supplies with the disposable diaper and which, in some way, allows for more than one opening and re-closing of the diaper. For instance, such a closure system for opening and refastening diapers is described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,951,149. In that patent the separable tape comes with the fastening tape as part of the system. On the other hand, there are many disposable diapers on the market which have no means to allow ready separation from the fastened condition for diaper opening. It is primarily to these diapers that this invention is directed.